


The War In His Head

by Teawithmagician



Series: Goodness, it's Stucky! [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: AU, Angst, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Drama, F/M, Female Steve Rogers, Het, Mental Health Issues, Minor Violence, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, alternative universe, split personality, winter soldier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 16:08:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6086158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teawithmagician/pseuds/Teawithmagician
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes invents Winter Soldier when the pain grows unbearable. Once invented, Winter Soldier doesn't want to leave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The War In His Head

They take away his mechanic arm and they take him into the custody: a cube cell of bulletproof, Hulk-proof, and, partly, Loki-proof glass. They want to use the electric collar and the inhibiting injections, too, but Stevie tells them they won't do it to him.

He has surrendered, he doesn't deserve it.

“He is dangerous,” Tony says. “What parts of the word “dangerous” exactly come in conflict with your comprehension?”

“No, he is not.” 

“How do you know? He tried to kill you,” Tony arms are crossed, the reactor, his heart, glows blue under the shirt.

“He saved my life.” Stevie leans over the table. She is not emotional, and she is not single-minded, though she accused of being both too often. In any way, she is not going to stop.

“I saved your life thousands of times.” Tony can't forget, neither can Stevie, but they have to work it out now, or, perhaps, never.

“I guess, we are now not talking about you, Tony,” Bruce Banner reminds. He stirs the sugar in his coffee, avoiding looking at them talking. Unspoken resentments must be following them across the room like comets' tails. “Besides, I'm not sure you use the correct numbers.”

“Now you have something to say! Share your opinion, Bruce, be my guest. What are we supposed to do with this living threat to public safety?” Tony is good with fake astonishment. The way he fakes it makes the audience clap, laugh and cry. 

“I guess, mister Barnes is...” Bruce starts, but Stevie interrupts him, “Bucky is not a threat. Look at him, what HYDRA did to him nearly destroyed him, but still he wants to cooperate on his own.”

“He has never wanted to cooperate,” Tony raises his voice. “He came for you because he remembered you, that's why. There is a trigger in his memory, and it's – you! That only means HYDRA made only half a job erasing his personality. Still, he is not the man you used to know.”

“Now tell me what I don't know about your experiments, Stark. Have you already erased somebody's mind in an attempt of saving the humanity? Last time you wanted to save the world we nearly had it destroyed.”

“We've already discussed Ultron Crisis,” Stark fends Stevie off with innate equanimity she sometimes envies. “Let me remind you, captain, who invented the plan which put it to an end.”

“Why do you always need to make a problem just to think out the solution?” Stevie starts. It is going to turn into one of their endless quarrels, but it is time for Bruce to interrupt them.

“Friends,” Bruce rarely raises his voice. This time he speaks calm, too, but it makes Stevie and Tony hold their tongues. When Bruce says “Friends” in this manner of him, his smile becoming tensed and his eyes shining with glimpses of green, he is better to be heard. “Friends. My research on the subject confirms that James Buchanan Barnes bears no trace of HYDRA control. He now acts on his own. Tony is right saying that you, Stevie, are the trigger. I am inclined to think you are even more: the catalyst of the awakening of the blocked parts of his memory.”

“Wanda Maximoff's independent research states the man who is sitting down there,” Tony points his finger on the hologram in the middle of the table, a pretty accurate picture of Winter Soldier's cell, “is not the man Rogers talks about. His personality is not the personality of James Barnes.”

“How do you know that? Natasha and Clint were brainwashed, too, but they restored their memory in full.”

“With mister Barton, we have transitional experience,” Bruce explains. “Loki's influence was of the origin we still investigate, and it didn't last long. Natasha's case was much more interesting, but the influence on mister Barnes' psyche, his mind and genetic structure on its every level was so long and intense his self-perception can be injured so bad we may never restore it.”

“But he remembers me.” Stevie remains of the same mind and it provokes next outburst of Tony's anger.

“Because of that “he remembers me” you, Captain Duty, left Avengers to join this human disaster and nearly get yourself killed. Only your merits before the government, your status and my connections saved you from the military court.”

“It wasn't your connections only, Stark, it was Fury who made a decision to accepts Bucky's apply for refuge,” Stevie cuts Tony down with the expression she uses to wear when speaking to especially skeptical generals. “Don't act like you owe S.H.I.E.L.D. You are a soldier here, just like everybody else.”

“I am more of a researcher,” Bruce notes, but Tony looks only at Stevie. He examines her face and Stevie sees Tony face changing, knowing that the storm is on the way and it's coming for her.

“It is strange to be accused of – how do you say - owing Fury's project? - from the Captain of Ice Era who still can't come to an understanding of such a simple thing as...”

Stevie is ready to meet everything Stark has ever been going to say. Her arms akimbo, her plait lies between her shoulder blades, her chin is exposed: she is ready to fight and to protect. She never has the possibility, though, as Bruce suddenly finishes the dispute.

“Due to our numerous tests and the reports of the specialists working with mister Barnes, his mental conditions may now be called more stable. This is the result of your, Stevie, taking part in the therapy. I don't think S.H.I.E.L.D. should consider mister Barnes as a sleeping agent, but, though he came to this state of stability, for now, his progress is frozen. Still, there are always little improvements when you visit him, I mean, they are more like rather noticeable improvements, but they are too short-termed to be considered as effective under the circumstances.”

Bruce starts from afar, but Tony interferes quickly, “What do you mean? No. Don't tell me. Do the eye injuries go straight to the brain? Fury has lost his mind. Have you seen anybody walking out of his apartments with a brain in a jar?”

“Within your personal responsibility,” Bruce says, looking at Stevie, “you can take mister Barnes with you. But you will be under S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents observation.”

“I've never counted for less,” Stevie says. This victory has given her a hard time.

***

Stevie wakes up in the middle of the night because Bucky is screaming. He screams because of the nightmares, he wakes up and continue screaming because he is frightened so much even his new personality has to accept that.

Stevie has learned a lot of information she would prefer never have known on doctor Banner's advice to read of various forms of schizophrenia. Bucky's symptoms are not exactly schizophrenic, but Bruce says he has nothing closer to Bucky's case than this.

Stevie jumps off the bed and hits the wall, she understands what she is doing only the in hallway, sneaking in pajamas with the shield in her hand. Her body acts on the instincts, but Stevie regains consciousness right on time.

Stevie gets the shield back to the bedroom and goes to Bucky's room. Bucky lies in the bed, his eyes are closed, his body is constrained. His head is raised over the pillow for an inch or two, as though he is flipped by some kind of impulse and frozen in the position.

When Stevie lived in NY, two of three times Bucky came to her place because he was feeling bad. He used to fall on the sofa, throw his hands behind his head and keep silence with gloomy look till Stevie started questioning. In the end, Bucky never told Stevie what happened, but there was something in her presence he needed, because – because he was that kind of jerk.

There's something in Stevie's presence he still needs when in the night paroxysms strike. Stevie makes Bucky open his eyes, she makes him answer the questions, she makes sure he knows where he is and she promises him everything will be alright, but he doesn't care.

“They are here,” he says. “They are standing behind the door. They have brought out the rest. When you will command them to proceed. The protocol has started.”

“There's nobody behind the door,” Stevie says. Bucky's voice is monotonous and lifeless, his eyes set deep in the sockets, circled with dark yellow.

“They are waiting for you to proceed to fulfill the protocol.”

Steve comes to the door, she opens it, she turns the light on and shows Bucky there are no one around. “See? It's okay, Buck.” “I am not Buck.” Stevie hates when he says that. He is Buck, he just doesn't know that – for now.

“Who are you, if you are not Buck?” she asks, standing by the door. He look at her, rarely blinking, and says, “I don't know”. In the day, he answers, “I am Winter Soldier.” In the night, he never knows.

“Good Lord,” Stevie presses hand to her forehead. When Bucky spoke to her when she and Sam found him, he remembered who he was and he called himself Bucky Barnes. His persistence in calling himself Winter Soldier spared Stevie of hope, but Bruce says there's always a hope.

There is a person in the night, says Bruce, the part of Bucky who screams, what doesn't identify himself neither with Bucky Barnes, nor with Soldier. When Stevie speaks to Soldier in the morning, it always appears he doesn't know anything about the screams. But when she asks him to let her talk to Bucky, he says there is no such man.

“Okay. We both need to sleep,” Stevie concludes.

“You can't go,” Bucky says. His only arm compresses the blanket, the metal one is left at S.H.I.E.L.D. base as it still goes through the tests Stark insisted on. “The protocol demands the presence of the officer in charge.”

“I am not going anywhere, Buck,” Stevie sits back on the bed. “I am staying with you. Soon you will be okay.” 

Stevie holds her hand on Bucky's arm for an hour or so, and still he is not falling asleep. Bucky watches the door patiently like a prisoner watches the jailers.

“Buck,” Stevie calls him by the name. He never responses, though sometimes corrects her indifferently, but she proceeds to call his name to make him get accustomed to it. “Do you remembered the day you said I am stupid for going to war? You said I'd better marry a man and stay at home. I was so angry with you I said, you never proposed to me. I've never seen you blushing before, Buck. Later, I cried at Peggy's office, like, for an hour or so. Do you remember?”

“No,” he still watches the door, holding his breath. Stevie sighs.

***

In the morning, Stevie and Winter Soldier are having breakfast. Winter Soldier is the sanest representative of Bucky in Stevie's flat and the one who irritates her the most though he is the second one helpless after the night screamer.

Winter Soldier is absolutely conscious. He remembers the shortcuts of his missions, he recognizes Natasha, S.H.I.E.L.D. sensors show he feel uncomfortable in closed space like his cell. But, without his arm, suffering consequences of his injuries, he moves like a half-smashed bug.

Bruce says, that after the trauma caused by unblocking parts of consciousness, previously segmented by HYDRA, Winter Soldier has lost the connection with true body owner – Bucky Barnes. Bucky was the core, and the Soldier was the Surface. But as Bucky made his rush towards the Surface, Soldier pushed him back and both they were blocked in different layers of consciousness.

Winter Soldier comes to breakfast right on time. They always have cereal and peanut butter toasts, as Stevie is a perfectly lame cook. Natasha tried to teach Stevie a recipe or two, but Stevie appeared to be her greatest failure. Natasha accepted it and strongly recommended never in Stevie's life go undercover as a chef.

“Milk?” Stevie's pours the milk into the glass. There's always a chance if Winter Soldier takes the milk by himself, he pours it all other the kitchen. Besides, he has his difficulties with the spoon. 

“I don't drink milk,” Winter Soldier says nor raising his head. His cereal swells, overflown by the hot water. Mark on the package reminds it's Fitness series, Stevie picked it because it was with hazelnut and raisins, not because of the F-word everyone seems to be so mad about.

His cheek had a cereal print on it. Natasha says it's more than humiliating for an agent to be disabled like that. It's like she feels more compassion towards Winter Soldier than Bucky. Stevie doesn't understand that. 

“Bucky loved milk,” Stevie wants to take the second glass, but she stops herself. No means no. If Bucky doesn't want milk, she can't make him drink it. He is not her pet, he is a human, and she has to respect that.

“I am not Bucky.” Instead of an art book on Stevie's side of table lies psychiatry research almanac. Winter Soldier notices that it seems to Stevie he doesn't much like the fact. He doesn't like to feel like a patient to her, and she doesn't want to be his therapist. They both have to, or S.H.I.E.L.D. will make it on its own.

“But you are,” Stevie insists. There must be a more subtle way to hint Winter Soldier has not gone that far from Bucky Barnes he rejects, but Stevie is a lame therapist, too, when it comes to Bucky Barnes.

“No.” Soldier gets the cereal in the mouth, he chews slowly and thoughtfully. When the hazelnut sticks between his teeth, he cracks it with a gentle, quiet sound. Natasha says he used to rush into the environment when it came to capturing, but he never sought for more destruction, he only did his work.

Stevie doesn't know if it comforts her or depresses.

“You are nothing more than Bucky's psychic protection.” Stevie puts the milk into the fridge. It's hard to say it looking Winter Soldier into the eyes. 

In the flesh, alive, he sits there, looks at her, one of his T-shirts sleeves empty with the absent hand. He doesn't look like Bucky, but he is alive and real, and Stevie can’t ban him from living that easy. To kill and to make disappear are two different things.

Stevie can kill, under the circumstances. The other thing, she just... can't.

“I am not the man you're talking about,” Winter Soldier is as stubborn and Stevie herself. “I am different. I worked for HYDRA, I tried to kill you, I understood I was used. But I am not Bucky Barnes.”

“Why did you call yourself Bucky Barnes when we met?” 

Winter Soldier remains silent. He has a challenge of the second spoon, and his hair is very dirty.

***

After the breakfast, Stevie washes his hair in the sink. The dishes stay on the table, she has a washing-machine, after all, and she doesn't know a place better for a fast hair-washing when the kitchen sink.

Stevie brings hypoallergenic soap from the bathroom and asks Soldier to bend over the sink. He doesn't mind, he knows that his life outside depends on Stevie's opinion of his progress. He mostly does that he tells him; luckily, she doesn't tell him much.

“Close your eyes,” Stevie says when she starts to rub the soap into his hair. She says that automatically, thinking that must be odd to ask the deadliest HYDRA assassin to close his eyes because it is going to pinch. 

“Close your eyes,” Bucky said when Stevie leaned over the sink, “or it's going to pinch.” She experimented with oil paints and turquoise got right into her hair. She tried to wash it away, but only smeared the paint just to see in awe and terror how her hair became blue.

Good that Bucky jumped at her place and examined the scale of the disaster. He said that sometimes he thought that Stevie liked to invent problems out of thin air. He dropped at the nearby shop for a laundry soap, telling Stevie it's going to be a great wash.

When Bucky washed Stevie's head, the only thing she could think of was that she can't sense his smell through the laundry stench. Bucky's sleeves were rolled, and Stevie tried to catch every glimpse of his arms just to draw them later, but mostly she saw the tin-plate sink and streams of turquoise blue, mixed with her tears.

Still, his fingers were so strong and tender that gave Stevie goosebumps. She felt like a little monster, demolished by the fact Bucky had no idea what a pleasure it was. To have his fingers in her hair, even if they were rubbing, not caressing the curls like he did with the other girls, was so fantastic she cried.

Stevie learned how to live realizing Bucky would never see how much she loves him, that for him, Stevie was never really a woman. She was his friend, his mad little sister, the girl he cared about, but not a woman he could fall in love with. That sliced Stevie like a knife, her heart burned and she cried, hoping he wouldn’t notice it.

Later, Stevie had the strength to admit it and to be a friend she was, not a woman she wanted to be, but it hurt, goodness, it hurt. Stevie only forgot how it hurt when she got into the training camp and started to do something real, something worthwhile. When Stevie met Bucky after, she was sure she went along with the fact he didn't love her well.

The problem was that Bucky didn’t know he wasn't supposed to be in love with her. In the end, he was never as good as killing his feelings as Captain America.

***

Stevie dries Bucky's hair with the towel. Bucky – or Winter Soldier - told her he doesn't like hair-dryer because he can't hear anything that happens in the flat when Stevie turns it on. He says that in the case of the attack they both need to lessen the distractions. Just in case.

To get Winter Soldier to the living room, Stevie has to hold his shoulder. His sense of space is damaged, sometimes it's hard for him to hold the balance. From time to time he bumps into the doorjambs. With his right hand, it's not that kind bad, but the stub of the left hand is vulnerable – it hurts, but Winter Soldier never shows it to Stevie.

Luckily, Stevie doesn't need his permission to see what he is hurt. Bucky or not, he has his face, and, if coming to Bucky's face, Stevie can read his thoughts by looking at the way he blinks. When Stevie dries Winter Soldier's hair, she asks what else he likes or not – Bruce and she decided it will be good to give Winter Soldier personal development. Letting him feel like a human, not a weapon, is the healthiest thing they can do.

“Not many things,” he answers.

“You like living here,” Stevie says. “And you don't like being at S.H.I.E.L.D. base. You have your preferences, you can tell be about that.”

When wet, his hair casts red and it remembers Stevie about Natasha. After Winter Soldier tried to kill Natasha, they came to an understanding, but Natasha didn't remember he liked something but the work in special, too.

“You mostly talk about milk and art,” Winter Soldier says in a pause. “I don't like both.”

It is an act of rebellion against her and her morning attempts, but Stevie insists. Winter Soldier is smart and observant in the way Tony Stark calls autistic. Natasha says Winter Soldier was always self-absorbent, in the end, he lived in cryochamber.

“Why do you like living here?” Stevie is bad with the open questions, and Winter Soldier doesn’t want to talk, but they should talk at least for an hour every day to get the emotional connection stable. It is harder than blowing up tanks, Stevie must admit.

“How would you like being put under observation in a bullet-proof glass cell?” Winter Soldier asks in response. He is not crazy, Stevie reminds herself. He is just lost. 

“But you don't like when I ask you about Bucky?” Again, Bucky. They return to him so often the name screeches on Stevie’s teeth like sand.

“There's no such thing as “like”. I am not him, that's all. I can't answer.” That sounds reasonable, something Winter Soldier thinks about. It makes Stevie ask more.

“You've said there is no Bucky here, and now you say he is no more. What do you mean?”

“He’s been here before. He is gone now.”

“I miss him,” Stevie says it from her heart, she doesn't think about the one whom she is saying that. But also, she feels like that Winter Soldier is related to it, too, he ought to know that. 

“I don't,” Winter Soldier says. Stevie sets the towel aside and takes the brush from the coffee table, covered with sheets of blank paper and pencils. She thinks about making sketches of him, but she never really makes herself start.

To start brushing, Stevie needs to unravel Winter Soldier’s hair. He sleeps bad, sweats and tumbles, and in a day or two, his hair becomes a total mess. Stevie had this problem, too, but when she started to wear a plait it became much, much better. Not a solution for Winter Soldier, though.

“Do you know him good?” In the end, she asks. “Bucky, I mean.”

“I know him.”

“What do you think about him?” Stevie tries to unravel the knots at his nape. The worst thing about the work is that Winter Soldier never says when she hurts him, so she has to be twice as careful pulling the strands.

“You asks only about him.” Stevie's fingers don't tremble and she doesn't pull his hair out of surprise, but it is one of those rare moments she really wants to swear.

“I ask about you, too,” she objects, but Winter Soldier doesn't agree.

“You do?”

“Maybe I don’t do it often,” Stevie sits next to him, brush still clenched in her fingers. “But you don't talk about yourself much.”

“I was made not because they wanted to speak.” Sometimes, Winter Soldiers says things that make Stevie shudder. Here is one of those: she holds her breath.

“You mean HYDRA? There is no HYDRA here.”

“There is S.H.I.E.L.D.” 

“S.H.I.E.L.D. is not HYDRA.”

“You are going to make use of me.” This is not an accusation, Winter Soldier speaks matter-of-factly. For him, Stevie is the part of the S.H.I.E.L.D., so their intentions are the same. Steve may treat him better, but in the end, the doesn't separate her from Fury.

“I am not making use of you.” 

“You want your friend back,” Winter Soldier reminds. Stevie remains silent for a moment or two, when she stands up, throws the brush on the couch and says, “I need to have some fresh air. I'll be back soon.”

When she walks out of the room, she knows Winter Soldier is watching her. Maybe he thinks she is angry and wonders when she sends him back to his cell. The way he looks at things makes Stevie wants to yell and hit things.

Once, Stevie did it - she threw the canvas she worked on for two months into the waste basket. The canvas was her entrance examination work, the best portrayal she has ever done. It was the day Bucky got conscripted and Stevie realized he finally found something bigger than him, and he was not going to make it alive.

***

Black Widow waits for Stevie in the square. She sits on the bench, her legs crossed, a pack of crackers lying next to her. Natasha is a perfect chameleon, now she looks like a resting waitress after a busy day in the local eatery.

“Hi,” Natasha says when Stevie approaches. “You look like a dread housewife, ten years older and children. You need to do something with your hair, too.”

“I am nearly hundred years old,” Stevie sits on the bench and takes a fistful of crackers, each in the shape of a little fish. 

“We already have the master of the flat jokes, we don't need the mistress,” Natasha smiles with the corners of the lips. She is a tough agent, the way she speaks reminds Stevie of Winter Soldier: the same short, dry phrases and rare humor that makes you shudder.

Stevie went through the war, she lost all her friends, her family, everything. She has been torn out of her time, has to live in the future she fought for and for what she is, by all the means, relict. But she has never been that kind tough, or, maybe, she has never been that kind of person to match Natasha in the things Stevie doesn’t really want to think about.

“Stark wants the experiment to be canceled?” Stevie asks. Fishes taste with salt and pepper, puff pastry crunches in the mouth quietly. It’s her sore, and she just can’t help picking it.

“Like hell he is,” Natasha agrees and puts her portion of salty fishes in the mouth. He nails are red, Stevie wants to do the same with hers, be she never has enough time. “But Fury thinks if you can't do it, no one can.”

“And if I can't?” Stevie asks. What if she can't? It is always her to win the war, to stop the villain, to bring the peace. Last two things are teamwork, but this time, Stevie is alone against Bucky's illness, but it's not only her and ill broken Bucky: too many people are watching them and waiting for her either to fail or to succeed.

“It's not any better, I guess.” Natasha gives Stevie a piercing look. Hers and Winter Soldier’s manner to look at you like you are an object of interesting features irritates Stevie. Stevie knows it's professional, but she is a soldier, not an assassin, and she can't get comfortable with it.

“A week has passed, and I am already tired.” Stevie confesses. It won't be any worse if she says that. Natasha confessed her worst things when she thought she was dying, now it's Stevie's turn to say things she will regret later.

“Do you give up?” Natasha asks.

“No. Never. But I am tired.”

“You know, the whole thing always seemed strange to me. He tried to kill me once, and he was good, he was just like me. You are kind of my friend, but you and him, that's hard to understand.” Natasha shrugs her shoulders, looking at the toes of her sneakers.

“You mean Captain America and Winter Soldier…” Stevie starts. She has never thought of it like that. Fury says her greatest weakness is the confidence she is so right she needs to give no explanations. If Stevie believes she does a right thing, everything else becomes a blind area.

“It's bullsh...” Natasha remembers Stevie doesn't like this language right in time, ”Bizarre.”

“He hasn't always been this way,” Stevie says. Between the memory of Bucky she knew and Winter Soldier Avengers saw lies seventy years of tortures and brainwashing.

“A monster?” Natasha thinks fast.

“Don't call him like that.”

“I am a monster, too, and I date monster. If we only were able, we would already have monstrous kids.” Natasha explains calmly, and Stevie slowly cools down.

Natasha has the past of her own and her own demons, Stevie uses to remember that, but sometimes she forgets. It's good Natasha has the guts to remind her, and now Stevie feels slightly ashamed.

“How's Bruce, by the way?” Stevie asks just to talk of something else. 

“He is reading your reports,” Natasha understands and talks like nothing has happened. “He said that there won't be an easy way to make your friend recover. It's too early to give up.”

“Bruce asked you to come to tell me that?” Stevie asks.

“No. I came to tell you that. You know, sometimes I am bitchy, but I am not a bitch. You are going through the hard times. You need to know it's not forever.” Natasha crunches and offers Stevie a hand full of crackers. “I like them much. Really tasty.”

“I'm not giving up,” Stevie takes the crackers. “I'm just tired. Maybe I need to sleep.”

“And in the night you...” Natasha starts, and Stevie interrupts her, “In the night he screams because of the nightmares.”

“I have it, too. That's normal.”

“Do you believe in what you are saying?” Stevie asks.

“No. Should I?” Natasha smiles with the corner of the lips again. That smile, she shares it with Bruce.

***

When Stevie returns home, it still tastes with crackers in her mouth. She is ready to talk but she can see no Winter Soldier in the living room. He is neither in the kitchen nor in his room. Looking into the hallway, Stevie sees the door to her bedroom is open, lonely piece of old yellowish paper lying on the floor.

Stevie knows what she will see inside and it gives her thrill. This time, Winter Soldier has gone too far. He is spying on her again though his conditions are so poor he can't clean up his own mess. Stevie got him a room to show him what personal space is. And his personal space is in meters out of her bedroom.

When she comes into the bedroom, her sketches and watercolors are thrown on the bed, on the floor, on the windowsill - everywhere. Every drawing is the same man – sitting, talking, smiling, watching baseball, his hands in the pockets, smoking, wearing the uniform, walking in the mud, sniping, smoking again, sleeping, his back to the boxes.

“What are you doing here?” Stevie asks.

“I've been here before. I was watching you when I tried to remember,” Winter Soldier explains. He holds a piece of paper in his hand, the face of the man on the sketch is shaded, but the appearance is recognizable. “I wanted to see them again to make the things clear.”

“Do you have any idea what personal space is?” Stevie takes the piece of paper away from his hands and starts to collect her sketches precipitously.

“Why did you draw him?” Winter Soldier asks. He stands, slightly swinging, in stretched sweatpants Sam lent, in Sam's old T-shirt, bare feet on her carpet, looking like an asylum ghost.

“This is none of your business,” Stevie grabs the folder he left on the bedside table and stowes it with the drawings. “You have your room. You must remember this one is mine.”

“You always draw only one man.” Winter Soldiers takes another piece of paper and examines it. “Why was Bucky so important for you? He was weak. He left you alone.”

“This is personal,” Stevie tries to take this paper of, too, but Winter Soldier suddenly catches Stevie's arm in the capture. His arm as strong as hers, she feels it when he clenches his fingers. 

“You were drawing him for ages, every trait of him, especially the eyes. When you were drawing me, you always got the face shaded.” Winter Soldier says. “I saved your life when you were my mission. He wouldn't do that for you. HYDRA had destroyed him. He would kill you, but still you want him back.”

His gray-blue eyes are cold as ice, Stevie even remembers how cold she was when the S.H.I.E.L.D. found her frozen in the polar snow. “I am not a smudge on his face,” he says. “I have a face of my own.”

“You are Bucky Barnes,” Stevie says and headbutts Winter Soldier in the face. Winter Soldier back off, his nose is bleeding. Stevie thinks it's enough when he suddenly uppercuts her in the stomach. This time, he needs no help with dimensional perception. 

A good kick, but weaker than the ones he made hunting Stevie and Natasha. Stevie dodges and sends Winter Soldier into the wall. He falls down, and when she comes to him, heavily breathing, she sees that he is not going to get up and fight. 

The anger is gone. Stevie's forehead is aching, his bones must be made of the same material as his hand. He doesn't defend himself and he doesn't attack. He just lies there and watches Stevie coming closer. 

“I'm so sorry,” Stevie says. She really is. She gives Winter Soldier a hand, but he doesn't take it. His mouth is bleeding and his teeth are covered with blood.

“I must come back to S.H.I.E.L.D,” he says.

“Why? No,” Stevie is crushed. “It's just a fight, and it was you who started it. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do it, but you grabbed my hand, I just can't stand men grabbing my hands, any men, I mean. Look, we don't understand each other, but we are trying! We can work it out, together, like we did.”

“We never did anything together” Winter Soldier wipes the blood, but there are more oozing from his nostrils. “I know only the memories of you. And they are not mine. Nothing is mine. Even the face belongs to him.”

When he stands up and returns to his room, with and effort, but without her help, Stevie sits on the floor, surrounded by her drawings and sketches. She wants to cry as she wanted to cry for so many times, but it seems like she has forgotten how to do it.

***

This night Bucky doesn't scream in his sleep. Stevie lies awake, ready to come to the rescue, but he doesn't scream at all. Maybe the memory of her was the trigger, but after it flashed, a man Bucky became was able to do it on his own.

Stevie understands that. If that's how it gets better, she will take Winter Soldier back to S.H.I.E.L.D. She realizes she has made mistakes because from the very beginning her attitude was personal. But Bucky – or Winter Soldier – has personality, too. 

Stevie accepts Bucky decision to live the life of his own even if there is no place for her in this life. She already did it back in time, so she can do it once again. She hopes he doesn't hate her, and she is angry with him just a little, but most of all she is angry with herself.

Stevie comes to Bucky's door and stands there, asking herself if he is sleeping or not. She wants to say she will do what's better for him even she doesn't want it. She wants to say she wants one day to see free and happy, nightmares leave him and he is the one to choose whose side to take.

She is with him till the end of the line. 

He must be sleeping, he sleeps tight if the nightmares pass by. Stevie quietly opens the door to his room and takes a few little steps into it. She talks about personal space, so she shouldn't enter his place without a permission, but if he sleeps, she doesn't want to wake him up.

It's so cold there Stevie feels like she put her hand into the fridge. The difference is it's not the fridge and not only her hand is going to chilblain. Bucky lies in the bed, pale as snow, his breath comes out in the clouds of steam, his face is lifeless.

“Bucky!” Stevie comes to his bed, she touches his arm – it is deadly cold. She turns the heating on maximum and pulls more blankets from the closet. She puts them on, nearly burying Bucky under, but that doesn't seem to help.

“Cold,” Bucky says abruptly. “Cold,” he opens his eyes, and Stevie asks him to look at her, to talk to her, to never surrender to the cold, but he's sinking into darkness and she can't stop it.

What you can do if the one is freezing in the snow and you have no blankets, Stevie asks herself – she already has the answer. Stevie gets under the blankets, holds Bucky tight, wrapping her hands around him: it's the basic First Aid course from the training camp.

“My arm burns,” Bucky says.

“What arm?” Bucky moves the stub and screws up his eyes, clenching his teeth. It's the memory striking his hard, the memory of how the Winter Soldier was made. Stevie knows if he tells her more, it will break her, but she doesn't stop asking.

“Why does it burn?” Stevie lies with Bucky cheek to cheek, her arms on his shoulders, her fingers pressing into his skin. She hopes the warmth of her body will do, but he is still cold, and he's in pain she can't ease.

“They cut me. Every time deeper, till I lose all my arm. They say they'll give me a metal one. Until that, I must get accustomed to cold.”

“It's all over now, Bucky,” Stevie promises. “It's warm, and I am here.”

“They are here, too.”

“I won't let them hurt you,” Stevie no more understands what she is talking about. The sound of her voice distracts Bucky, so he proceeds to speak, shivering with cold. “I will protect you.”

“Who will protect you?”

That's what Bucky said to her in the camp. That's what he used to say to her all the time, “Who will protect you?” That was the way he thought he kept her safe. His rifle did it better, but Bucky was always bad with words when he had to say something important. 

He never really said because it was the day he died.

“I can handle it myself,” Stevie says, realizing she is not dying from cold anymore. 

Bucky is still cool, but not unbearably. He warms up slowly, breath is steadying, his fingers are trembling. He moves them, one by one, lying among the blankets, and when clenches into a fist.

Winter Soldier says, ”It is my memories, not his. Why did you come? He won't talk to you. He won't talk to anyone. He is dead.”

“Why do you tell me Bucky is dead all the time?" Stevie asks. She feels his breath on her lips. "Why is it so important for you?”

“He made me for the things he couldn't stand and left me to suffer for us both. When he is safe, he wants to kill me and live.”

He must be a total mess, Stevie thinks. She is so tired, she can't handle this. She can't say Winter Soldier she wants him to disappear because it's a lie: she wants Bucky to get rid of Winter Soldier and to come back. But it seems like getting rid of Winter Soldier is not helping Bucky, it is killing him.

“You can call yourself whoever you want,” Stevie says. Her lips are numb, yet her voice is not trembling. She is good in saying things nobody can. She realizes that giving Winter Soldier permission to exist she may never see Bucky again, but Winter Soldier is Bucky, too, and she can't fight him.

“It hurts you. You want Bucky back.” Bucky Stevie used to know has an obsession of picking sores. He was driven by the destruction as moth by the torchlight. It is strange to hear him doing it again, but this time with the unfamiliar mouth.

“But I don't want to hurt you. You are my friend." 

“He loves you because of that, too,” he says. “But I love you more.”

***  
If you like this my work, you may also like my original one, too: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6104860


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